Great Plowing Engine Being Built

10 IT "Experiment Which ]\lay ReVo'Iutio'mge .f lie Plowing of The Fields of The Far West Being Worked Out In Hamilton ' / I.Â» ; n .comer ot the Adyrmcq fiictiii'itig. company's shops on 11 street, Rtfiml two linjjc wheels, ns (i Inble nuil liiylicr Ihnti n door. Altove them rise (lie c.vliiulfrs Â«C 1111 engine, and Coi-ivanl horizontally from between tlicm project Die sice} gml- c-s at (lie engine platform, 'i'lie in- venlor cads Iliis plat form 11 deck; alul tliul's what it is, a deck. II is (lie deck of Die poivcrship of llco prairie. Some twenty or t h i r t y i'cel out in front of those huge wheels, under Iho end oÂ£ Ilio ginlws is Ilio rudder, smaller, Hanged nliout (lie middle, ))ivolcd. t)ack beside llic four upright cylinders is Ilie pilot lioii.se and the wheel--or rather, Hint is wlici" they will lie. There is nothing hici Kleel rods and piped mid copper wiro-i lliere now. And the itecl;, which will presently conceal giuiofiim (:UI!:B m u l water tanks, now conceals iuiliinÂ« nnd yon lo'ol; rAnuÂ»hi through to the floor. Niny and then n crane i-omu* along nnd drops u gear cover on an empty gear casing,'or lifts a crank shaft to }(s place. There is nboiit llw mass of steel;n l look of immobility and bigness. The foi|r cylinder seem woefully iiindeqiinto to (he (ask of making the thing go. It looks cumbersome, heavy, immovable. Yet the power of seventy-five horses will jump and iiirob'in that engine, power enough to drive all this steel over the fluids ul eight-miles an hour, power enough to drag twelve gang plows four miles every sixty minutes. Tliis unfinished riiass of wheels ^ n n d rods is llio Gerling (raclion engine. It is something now. It is untried. Models of it have done wonders, but the machine itself in work- n-dny business has never had the opportunity, to show what it ran do. More tlmn two years ago Fred A. Qerling, of Celilo, Oregon, began work on this invention. He has been at it ever since. Not on this alone, hut on other inventions as well. lie lins experimented, tesled, proved conclusively that these inventions arc not playthings. Associated with' him in "IB NEW TIUGTION 1 KNGINE :;r s? : Bern- UuiH By Messrs. Qerling Â« TiUtle n t the Advance Manufacturing Co.'s Plant. " ' this were others, the members of the Miillnpinali Mcclitmical Mnmifnelm- Jng company, Ilie officers of which are, as follows: F. A. Gcrling-, president and general manager; J."l[. Tuttlc, vice president; F. C. Hoecker, secretary and treasurer; J. A. Peltilt, M. 0.; J. B. Gilstrap; F. C. MoecUcr, J. M. Gorling and F. A. Gorling, directors. Two months ago Gcrling nnd Tnf- tlc enme to Hamilton and contracted with the Advance Manufacturing company for the first of the new traction engines. Constniclion has lieen delayed by the non-arrival of castings till (he engine which should have been completed (wo weeks ago, still stands in (he setting-up room unlinislicd. It is destined for the wheat fields of Old Mexico. Others will follow it WEALTH OF UNITED STATES trie! of Chihuahua, plowing by stcmn now cosls if2 nil acre. Qerling claims (hat his gasoline (raclion engine can do it for eighteen cents; that it can tear up seventy acres from sunrise to sunset. If the sombreroed son of Chihuahua cares to stay up all night and steer his engine by its own electric light over bis starlit fields instead of going oft' and playing (lie banjo under the window of his scnorita, why so Jinieli the heller for (he hundred'and forty acres which he can upturn in a. ilny. This is merely mentioned iu passing to show how the strenuous life may even invade the farm. This first of the new machines (hat is of 'four cylinders, water cooled. Complete, the machine will weigh eight tons. On iis deck it will carry a load of eight, more tons anil so.-naphtha.. This costs 12* cents n ladeii, will do the work of a f.wnnfv Inn ;,,' n,Â« ,,,,,,, ,,,..! ,i" . . . _ - . . laden, will do the work of a twenty ton steam traction engine. That it to say it will save the moving of eight tons of dead weight, enabling them to be ulili/ed for freight. It will pull a gong plow (nrning a strip sixteen feet wide at (he rate of four miles an hour, at a cost of eighteen cents per acre, and it will keep this up if necessary hour after hour for three days. The water tanks and gasoline tanks need refilling not oftciier than this. For soft grounds broad adjustable tires are provided. For hard ground these may be removed and narrow ones substituted. The tire width will I...... UJJI.J ijÂ«wau(utt;(t. iuu Eire wiuiti wilt is to go into strange lands is to be of'range from twenty.six to fifty-six seventy-five horse power. Its motor ' inches, (he lat(er width giving (he engine a span of sixteen feet from edge (o edge oE her huge wheels. The fuel to be used is distilled gasoline, or Ion in Ilio west, and the engine wjll iiso one-tenth of a gallon per horse poivec per hour. ( It can be seen (lint (he expense of feeding'one of (heso machines will be insignificant in. comparison, with that of feeding horses in numbers necessary to accomplish equal results. Thai is why, if (ho new machines "pan out" as there is every reason to believe that they wjll, n revolution in the farming and~liarves(ing methods of the west is bound to tako place. They will do the work quicker and cheaper than eilhcr horses or stcani traction engines. AVilh the Gerliug draft appliance which prevents (he front of the engine from "climbing," (a fault of 'all steam traction engines now), the new tractors will pull three times the weight oÂ£ the engine; This:draft appliance is the invention, I( was iiot much of a trick lo put a gasoline oiijjiuo on wheels nnd wake it go. But |o inakft il pull /md pull hard wns another proposition. The (liriist of Jho cogs on (lie drivers mailo Ihc front end of the nmcli.iiie rear, which was decidedly disastrous lo tra'calive' ofTorf. Builders oil'steam engines had solved (ho problem by^adding weight'.to'llic front cud. Accordingly, steering wrts hard and (he diud weight Jllo up coal, (lerliiijr dropped his drawbar below his n.vle, Â»ot n gruimtlu'flrd p t i U f tlio draff, and (ho fronl end slays on (lie ground. If (Ifc ground is sofl and (ho dm ft heavy, malting (lie steering hard, he s h i f t s ' s o m e of the of the draft-pull wild equalizing level's. His drivers hold and (he front end Corals its ambitious and doesn't "climb." Jlill climbing becomes n vuritnblo pleasure, for every ounce of pull (hat (ho online puts into (he wheels comes out in (ho drawbar. Speed,strength, economy. The new engine is expected (o do more work, dp it just ns f:\sl or fuslor, aud do cheaper than horse or si cum is .now doing it. All over the millions of acres of wheat country from. Canada lo Mexico (hero is lieed of holler, faster methods of planting nnd harvesting.' The machinery of the granary of (ho continent is overtaxed. If (lie (ierling engine can prove iiself, can make good, buyers will not need to be sought. Within a few weeks the new engine will he tried on some farm near this city. The trouble is thai three or four hundred acres don't make ,t respectable playground for such a baby of the open. It is maile to plow away in a slraight lino for hours. Gerling is also the inventor of a plow for use in dry-farming lauds. The plow lias circular blades which cuis (lie soil sixteen inches deep but do not-' turn it over. The blades cut abuul u luiartcr of an inch apart. Tly not Burning; tip Hie soil what little 1 moisture there is in it hns not Ilia chance lo evaporate, while the eft'ect of breaking the ground for (ho graiit is practically the same.

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